On construction sites, visualization tools for comparing 3D architectural or construction models with actual performance are desired but often unfeasible for project managers. A common and costly problem for designing new buildings or renovating existing facilities is misinterpretation of the building design intents, or simply falling behind in scheduled milestones due to poor planning and/or tracking of building progress. On-demand access to project information during the construction phase has a significant potential for improving decision-making during on-site activities.
Current systems exist for registering large numbers of unordered ground photos, time-lapse videos, and aerial imagery with 3D architectural models, all of which have received tremendous interest in the civil engineering, computer graphics, and computer vision communities. Some progress has been made with a semi-automated system for registering 3D architectural and construction models with time-lapsed videos, and in using radio-frequency based location tracking or fiduciary trackers for augmented reality visualization of 3D computer-automated design (CAD) models.
Current techniques for construction site visualization, however, provide for little interaction from users, particularly in calibration of a 3D model and/or use of the visualization as a planning and tracking tool, thus providing users little control. Current techniques are also weak in being able to estimate and handle both static and dynamic occlusions that often exist on construction sites. Many systems require a lot of data be input from users, creating large and costly overheads before any useful visualization can be created with which track construction progress.